


Trace of Salt

by Museical



Series: 31 Ways [1]
Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:12:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Museical/pseuds/Museical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years later, Miri no longer travels with the Queen's Riders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trace of Salt

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: What God Made Sailors For, from an old list: 31 Ways to Leave Your Lover.

The morning is young and misty when she stirs under the sheets, cool and clammy and salty like how Evin’s skin tasted the night before when she pressed a kiss to his collarbone. The sensation lingers on her lips, but she licks it away with only a trace of regret. Maybe it is instead the taste of today; today and the sea and the sky. Maybe she has already convinced herself.  
  
Evin doesn’t move when Miri swings her legs over the side of the bed. The sheet drapes around her waist but Evin is sound asleep, flat on his back. His arm stays flung out across the bed and Miri can trace the shape of where her body used to lay.  
  
Old, weathered floorboards creak softly under her bare feet. The old cotton shirt Miri buttons up has been molded by wind and salt to the shape of her body. For a moment the sensation of it sliding up her arms brings back the fleeting feeling of Evin’s hands, warm and calloused, sliding under and along her back...  
  
The moonlight sneaks in around ill-fitting shutters on the window and under the door, tracing his features--the bridge of his nose, the line along his chin to his chest, silver blonde curls splayed out on the pillow--but the not-so-distant sounds of boat horns push through those same cracks and Miri pauses only to lace up her sandals.  
  
Before straightening, she catches a glimpse of Evin’s wrist.  
  
Undyed cotton rope circles it, braided and tied in a sailor’s knot. Miri wove the bracelet herself, and Evin’s fingers had clamped down on her own when she offered it to him. Finding it, still under his shirt-sleeves when the copper Rider uniform had fallen to the floor, Miri’s heartbeat had come just a bit quicker. No matter that it had frayed in the face of time, wind and war turning the cotton grey and soft. The candle had guttered then, and Miri lost track of the bracelet with Evin and his gentle kisses in the darkness.  
  
On her knees, in these still moments before dawn, Miri knows that it will continue to fray and one day it will fall off.  
  
The boat horns, heavy and deep, roll across the waves again.  
  
It’s time to go. 


End file.
